


Keep Cold, Young Orchard (Good-Bye and Keep Cold)

by shewho



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Male-Female Friendship, Miscarriage, Tags Contain Spoilers, period-typical feminine hygiene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-18 22:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13109625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewho/pseuds/shewho
Summary: Margaret finds out that she’s having a baby at five weeks.Margaret finds out that she’s not having a baby after all at eleven weeks.(Six weeks of knowing just doesn’t seem like it should have been enough to fuck her up as badly as it does.)





	Keep Cold, Young Orchard (Good-Bye and Keep Cold)

The four days she spends with Donald in Tokyo pass in a too-quick blur.

By the time she’s worried enough to start counting backwards on her fingers, forty two more days have passed.

Once she puzzles it out, she manages another six whole days before she lets it slip.

***

She’s standing in the supply shed, trying the reign in Pierce _and_ keep her inventory register straight, countering the man’s inane tirade with a mild but continuous haranguing.

“Oh, what’s got your panties all in a twist?” Hawkeye grouses as she smacks his shoulder with her clipboard.

“A fetus,” she retorts.

Margaret realizes that she should probably shut up just in time to clamp her mouth closed so quickly that her teeth clack together.

Hawkeye says nothing, just drops the box of gauze he’d been lugging with a startled barking laugh. She’s wrapped up in his arms before she can blink, pulled tight against his chest and enveloped in the folds of his ratty fatigue jacket. Where she feels effervescent – like her blood’s been drained and replaced with champagne, or its cheap second-cousin ginger ale – he’s warm and solid, smelling of industrial soap and shaving cream.

When they separate, however, his faces settles into a more neutral expression. “Have you told Potter yet?”

She shakes her head, “I haven’t decided yet.”

“What’s there to decide?”

Margaret plants her hands on her hips and narrows her eyes. “A transfer back to the states takes a lot of paperwork; even more if I decide to resign my commission. And that’s if I elect to…remain in this state.”

“Margaret,” he says with an uncharacteristic air of seriousness in his tone, “This isn’t one of those problems that just goes away on its own if you ignore it long enough.”

“ _I know_ ,” she replies incredulously.

He stares at her for a second, his jaw tightening. “That’s not exactly a standard procedure taught in medical school, major. Plus, you know, chest cutters don’t usually play where the obstetricians roam. We tend to prefer the pastures just about nine inches north of there.”

“Dilation and curettage?” She curls her lip, “Pierce, even you should be able to figure out how to perform something so basic. I’m sure _Frank_ could.”

The enclosed space is suddenly silent, jarringly so.

“Christ, Margaret.” Hawkeye turns to leave the way he came, turning in the doorway to meet her eyes over his shoulder. “Let me know what you decide, then. Or Beej. Or Potter. Or – _fuck_ – even Frank. But, uh, don’t forget that there’s a bit of a timetable attached to this sort of thing.”

***

It’s been days since the 4077th has seen any significant casualties, and the stillness is beginning to rub everyone the wrong way. There’s only so much letter-writing to catch up on, so many backlogged magazines to read and card games to play and tepid coffee to drink.

The evening offerings in the mess tent are as mediocre as has sadly become the norm, and few people linger for second helpings. Most of the staff wander towards their own tents to waste a few hours before the scheduled movie begins. Margaret is among them, walking back to her own quarters when it happens.

A jolt of pain hits her out of nowhere, so intense it makes her feel light-headed for a second.

The pain’s almost enough to bring her down to her knees – _almost, almost_ – but she manages to keep her feet under her hips. Margaret snaps her jaws shut around the building scream. In the back of her mind, a klaxon is wailing; something is _wrong, wrong, wrong_.

It feels like something’s rending apart inside her, a menstrual cramp dialed up farther than should be even be _possible_ followed by a rush that feels both hot and wet between her thighs.

She smells the blood before she sees it.

It’s so familiar that she hardly registers it as blood; her first thought follows the line of _smells like an overnight round in O.R.._

She doesn’t cry when she sees the blood. She’s seen too much blood for it to be a catalyst of tears anymore.

Panting away the blackness creeping along the edges of her vision, she doubles over in the dirt as pain fists around her middle.

“Margaret!”

She hears her name, but it sounds like it’s coming from the opposite end of a long tunnel, all full of distorted echoes and ricochets.

 _Fuck_ , she thinks, disoriented as her vision remains foggy. _Pierce._

“Margaret!” Hawkeye shouts again, his voice easier to pinpoint because he’s suddenly _right there_ , heaving her back to a standing position, hands under her armpits, one going around her shoulder and the other to her waist as soon as he gets her vertical.

His face is bloodless white; hers probably is, too. Amidst all the whiteness, his gaping mouth looks like an open wound, absurd and grotesque. The two of them just stand there frozen for a moment, staring at each other in the middle of the compound. He swears softly but fervently, hesitating just for a second before launching himself into action.

“Pierce,” she begins, but he squeezes her shoulder and she bites back the rest of the sentence.

“Can you stand?” he asks, keeping his voice rough and level to hide the horror underneath. Margaret knows this man too well.

She starts to say “ _Yes, of course I can stand, dummy_ ,” but she’s barely begun when her body seizes up on itself and a second wet wave of heat floods her fatigues. The words strangle in her throat, coming out as one long, round vowel of pain.

The coppery metallic smell is overwhelming.

Hawkeye’s brows slam together and in one deceptively easy motion, he scoops her up with an arm under her knees and the other vined around her back. He takes off towards the O.R. at a dead sprint, hurtling over the packed earth faster than she’s ever seen him move without mortars or snipers being involved.

She hides her face in the fabric of his jacket, breathing harshly into the warmth settled there in the hollow of his throat. It’s too intimate – it is so intimate she nearly cringes – but she swallows down the anxiety because there is honestly no one in this godforsaken country she trusts right now more than Hawkeye Pierce.

She thinks she should probably say something. Anything. Something to curb his concern, the worry that lays tension tight across his shoulders.

Instead, she bites down on her lower lip until she tastes iron and doesn’t say a word.

Another flare of pain digs sharply into her gut, and Margaret can’t help but imagine gloved hands kneading her insides. Potter’s, Blake’s, McIntyre’s, Mulcahy’s, Hunnicutt’s, Frank’s, Pierce’s. A dozen faceless nurses’. Her own. Vaguely, she registers the familiar _wumpth-wumpth_  of the swinging doors and startles hard against Hawkeye’s chest.

“Hey,” he says, in the same tone she’s heard him use on skittish kids a hundred times, a soft litany of _easy, easy, easy_. “Hey, c’mon.”

Hawkeye settles her on the edge of the nearest table. She means to stay seated there as prim as she can manage, but another cramp rolls through her abdomen and she slumps back, curls up on her side.

The words _fetal position_ dart through her mind unbidden and she beats them back viciously.

“Margaret?” Hawkeye asks.

She snaps open her eyes to meet his anxious gaze, only just then realizing that they’ve somehow fallen shut. From the bare look of concern on Hawkeye’s face, it’s not the first time that he’s called her name.

Come to think of it, it’s probably the most he’s said her name in one day in the whole time they’ve been here.

“Margaret, please,” he says, pinning her with that painfully blue stare. “I have to scrub up. Will  you be alright – I mean, should I get – can you hang on for just a minute?”

“I’m fine,” she mutters thickly, scrabbling to gain a shred of composure. Levering herself back into a sitting position, she roughly wipes the wetness from her eyes with the back of one sleeve. “I’ll be fine.”

Hawkeye only disengages himself once he’s convinced that she really will be fine if left unattended for a minute, maybe two. He rambles to – _at_ – her from the scrub room, spinning new versions of the same circuitous, convoluted stories she’s heard a hundred times by now over the sound of the sink.

As fast as he can manage, he’s back, crouching beside her, fetal stethoscope in hand. Margaret lies as still as she can, trying to catch her breath even as Pierce scrapes her sweat-darkened fringe off her forehead with surprising gentleness.

“ _Sweet_ ” isn’t a word which comes to mind immediately for most people when they think of Hawkeye Pierce, but he can be incredibly tender when he wants to.

It’s just a rare occurrence, sort of like finding a field of five-leaf clover.

“Give me a number.” He means on a pain scale. “Five?”

She grits her teeth and feels nothing but shame when she mumbles, “Six.”

The examination is quick and perfunctory. Hawkeye offers her his free hand, lets her vice-like grip wrap around his fingers and squeeze until she hears the hollow _pop-snap_ of his knuckles. Instantly, she yanks her hand out of his.

“Sorry, ‘m sorry.” She knows how touchy surgeons can get about their delicate hands.

“No offense, major,” he says with a facial wince that belies just the tiniest twitch of discomfort, “But you grasp like a girl.”

She snorts wetly but adjusts her grip anyway, drawing her fingers down to encircle his wrist and clutching the proffered limb like a lifeline.

Hawkeye’s dark head bends towards her abdomen, and Margaret’s breath catches hard in her throat.

The silence is terrible.

“No heartbeat,” he announces.

“No,” Margert says immediately, because that’s not true, that’s impossible despite the creeping, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “ _No_.”

“No heartbeat,” he repeats stiffly.

She shakes her head, tears standing out in her eyes, gripping Hawkeye’s wrist so tightly that her own fingers stand out bright white and bloodless. “ _No_ ,” Margaret repeats a third time, like by saying it enough times she can make him take the words back, make it go away, make it _not true_.

“I’m sorry,” she hears him say, his voice gone all thick and ropy around the words.

There’s a high-pitched whining sound trying to claw its way out of her throat. Margaret’s crying. Margret’s crying in front of a _subordinate_ , a whole new realm of humiliation and –

She sobs then, tears slipping down her temples and landing in her hair and ears. Even though she and Donald didn’t really have plans for kids, at least nothing more concrete than the promise of “someday”, there’s still an unrelenting need to mourn for this fair-haired child they’ll never have now.

Hawkeye doesn’t say anything, just rolls off his gloves in uncharacteristic silence as she slowly gets herself under control, sobs fading into rough hitching breaths. Face held carefully neutral, he watches her, twin flashes of blue holding still without comment.

“Look,” he says finally, soberly, fiddling with the worn strap of his watchband as his mouth draws into a tight line. “There’s nothing – I mean, it’s just gonna take time now.”

Margaret just nods. “I’d rather bleed out in the peace and quiet of my tent, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure,” he says with a sad, oddly fond smile. “Just wait a minute. I’ll fill a hot water bottle and then we can go.”

Wiping away the last of her tears, leaving just the wet streaks trailing down her cheeks, she returns the smile shakily.

He offers her his arm when he returns from the prep room, heating pack in hand, and she steadies herself against his elbow. “Lead on, major.”

“Alright,” she says. And then she thinks she maybe says it again, but it’s hard to tell over the loud static buzz filling her ears. It’s as if she’s standing outside her body, watches herself leave the O.R. beside Hawkeye and walk calmly across the compound like there’s nothing wrong.

She knows she is…imposing. People think that her presence is off-putting. Despite her father being a gruff-but-kind man, and her mother being considered kind as well, Margaret was born with a hardness under her skin that neither of her parents possessed.

Right now she doesn’t feel it. She doesn’t feel any of that.

Shouldering open the door, Margaret grab the first towel she lays eyes on and spreads it over her neatly tucked sheets. She deposits her boots in their usual place below her bed and tries not to grimace when she lets herself flop down into her bunk. With half her face buried in the pillow, she doesn’t really see Hawkeye come over, instead feeling the cot sag as he sits at the foot of her bed.

He hands over the hot water bottle swaddled in a khaki t-shirt, shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “I have to go clean up. Can’t leave bloody linens lying around when my patient’s not in post-op.” He hesitates, “Need anything when I come back?”

“To start this day over.”

Hawkeye doesn’t offer up a snappy retort, just looks worried, and tired.

She can’t stand the way his eyes shutter off or the expression of pity that rolls over his features, so she focusses her glare on the spot just underneath his jaw where a good punch would knock him out and makes her mouth form the words that she wishes one of them would say: “But if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.”

When she laughs, it’s all bitterness, the muscles in her back trembling with how tense she’s holding herself.

Hawkeye clasps her shoulder, his hand warm and heavy even through her jacket. “Try and get some sleep,” he says as he stands, his mouth drawn down in a tight, bloodless line. “I’ll be back.”

Margaret usually doesn’t like prolonged touching, but something about the steady warmth of Hawkeye’s hand makes the whole messy situation seem a little less terrible, and she misses the contact as soon as it’s gone.

***

She counts to thirty after he leaves; then she can’t get to her feet fast enough. A trip to the shower tent seems like a good idea until she strips off her pants when the sheer amount of blood she finds streaked down her thighs forces her to reassess.

Officer’s latrine it is, then.

Margaret rummages through the contents of her footlocker, snatching up her sanitary belt, a box of Kotex, half a roll of toilet paper, and fresh underwear. She wraps a towel around her waist and a bathrobe over top of that, slides into her boots and shuffles toward the glorified outhouse.

Once there she slams the door open, slams the door shut, whips her robe off and slings it over the hook beside the door. Yanks down her underwear. Stares at the clotting blood and bits of tissue staining the cotton, vision swimming.

It’s not the blood that makes her stomach lurch. It’s the adrenaline that floods her system when she sees it, so much that her hands twitch and she can hardly swallow.

For a second, Margaret is somewhere else entirely – and then her brain slams the lid shut on her anxieties, forcing her out the daze.

Margaret moves mechanically, pushing through the sideways twist in her gut. Her hands don’t shake when they shove her undies down around her ankles, or when she kicks the offending garment off entirely.

They don’t shake when she spits into a wad of toilet paper and wipes at the blood drying tacky between her legs.

They don’t shake when she pins a fresh pad to the belt, or when she drags it up over her hips, wiggling so that it sits right, or when she pulls clean underwear up over it.

They don’t shake when she threads her arms into her robe, or when she knots the tie with a harsh tug.

They don’t shake when she balls her bloody underwear in her bloody towel and stalks back to her tent under the cover of growing darkness.

In the dark cocoon of her tent, Margaret curls up in bed and lets herself cry for a little while. It’s not big body shaking sobs; in fact, she barely makes a sound beyond the occasional rough inhale, just lies there with silent tears leaking steadily from her eyes.

***

By nightfall, she’s bitten a hole in her lip that could probably use a couple stitches, and her body feels like it’s ripping itself apart from the inside.

It’s late – late enough that the only sounds echoing through the compound are the soft sounds of canvas hitting canvas, and the louder click of Klinger’s heels on gravel – when Hawkeye ducks into her tent with a jaunty triple knock. “You didn’t need to come,” she says through sleep-slurred tears, grinding the heels of her hands into her eye sockets.

He shrugs lightly, perching on the edge of her mattress. “I brought you a fresh hot water bottle. And some pain killers.”

“Thanks,” she replies, trying to sound sincere instead of simply exhausted. Her heart is throbbing in her throat, which is funny, because she didn’t know it was still beating.

Even the dim light of the vanity lamp doesn’t mask the way that Hawkeye frowns. “You don’t have to _thank_ me,” he says insistently, sounding almost wounded. “We might not be best pals, but I’d like to think we’re cordial at the very least.”

Margaret schools her face into an expression of bland neutrality.

“Here,” Hawkeye digs into the deep pockets of his jacket, hands over a few loose white pills and a flat metal flash. “Drink that. It’ll help.”

Margaret eyes the container suspiciously. “If this is your homemade moonshine gin, I’ll just throw it up and be an embarrassment to all military women everywhere. And even you should know better than to mix pain pills with alcohol.”

Hawkeye looks like he’s just barely refraining from rolling his eyes. “Drink it,” he says, his tone leaving no room for disagreement. “It’s just water.”

She spins the cap off the flask and shoves the pills into her mouth. “Cheers then,” she mumbles around them; takes a sip, throws her head back, swallows.

“You can probably take some more in a few hours, if you feel up to it.”

“Leave ‘em on the nightstand.”

Hawkeye shifts where he sits, looking like an unnervingly overgrown kindergartener. “I dunno, Margaret. I know we didn’t operate, and I know you’re not in post-op, but I still think you oughtta be under some minor observation.”

“So what, you’re going to sit a bedside vigil?”

The determined look on his face makes it clear that he’s planning on doing _exactly_ that.

“Oh, just climb in,” she sighs, shifting over. The not-so-crisp sheets pool around her midsection. “You can’t sleep sitting up like that. I can’t promise I won’t bleed on you, but I just put a new Kotex in my belt,” she smacks her own hip for emphasis, “And it’s not as if you do your own laundry anyhow.”

He lies down beside her in the dark, the narrow bed dipping under their combined weight.

Sobered by the finality of it all, Margaret toys with her ring, spinning the loop of body-warm metal around and around her finger.

“Look on the bright side,” she says dully, staring up at the familiar green canvas. “I never did have to make that decision.” Her hands obstinately _do not shake_ as she ticks the perks off her fingers. “Didn’t have to resign my commission. Didn’t have to go stateside. Didn’t have to tell Donald. Didn’t have to tell Potter. Didn’t have to finagle a D &C from Hunnicutt – and don’t you get sore about _that;_ he’s the freshest from residency and I hate to say it but Frank probably couldn’t perform a curettage procedure to save his life and I don’t think Potter’s done anything like this since the 30’s, _maybe_ , and you’re _you_ ; I would’ve wanted you on anesthesia – so really, this saved us all an awful lot of trouble.”

Her eyes sting. Margaret hates tears. They make her feel so stupid and helpless, like a child, but there’s nothing she can do to prevent them this time as they pour hot and unwelcome and embarrassing down her cheeks.

“I didn’t mean to.” Throat tightening, she swallows hard around the words; _shut up, shut up_.

Hawkeye’s face crumples like he’s not quite sure yet whether the appropriate reaction is to scowl or sob. There’s a pause, and then he draws her into his chest, wiping the wetness from her cheeks and chin. “You’re gonna be okay,” he says quietly, with the steadiness of someone who knows their words are true. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Liar,” she bites out harshly, the word losing most of its power when it breaks in the middle, becoming a heavy, shame-filled sob.

Hawkeye wraps his arms around her and pulls her towards him, humming quietly, trying to soothe her. His hands come up to stroke the short hair escaping the bun at the back of her head. “You’ll figure it out.”

Tears slip down her nose and soak into his t-shirt, but he doesn’t mention the growing damp patch.

The last thing she hears before she slips into the black is Hawkeye singing.

_“‘Go home, go home,’ says Captain Pierce,_

_‘And tell Margaret from me:_

_She may reign queen o’er the land,_

_But Pierce is king of sea!’”_

***

Margaret wakes abruptly, entirely engulfed in pain. For several long moments, there is nothing but that unremitting sharp pain, her insides cramping so hard that she can hardly breathe or think. She throws up groggily without warning, but there’s an emesis dish shoved under her chin and a steady pressure at her back.

By the time she comes back to herself, still hazy with sleep, Hawkeye is wiping at her mouth with a tissue and softly coaxing her into taking some more pain meds, the whites of his eyes shining at her from the darkness.

“Sorry,” she croaks, struggling to keep her eyelids peeled open.

“It’s fine; you’re definitely not the first person to vomit on me.”

“Prob’ly the first one over the age of ten.”

“Nah. Beej’s a big guy but he’s secretly kind of a lightweight. C’mon,” he holds out a glass of stagnant water, “Bottoms up, buttercup.”

***

The next time she wakes up, it’s with a damp washcloth drying to her forehead and her hand loosely entwined with that of Hawkeye Pierce. He’s sleeping slumped down in the chair which normally faces her vanity desk, neck bent at an obviously uncomfortable angle, cheek tipped against his own shoulder, long limbs laid out in a boneless sprawl.

Soft gray light is starting to filter in from underneath her door, but Margaret has no idea what time it is. Pierce is snoring lightly, his features slack in sleep. There’s a salt stain on the front of his t-shirt, and a smear of blood crusted across his forearm.

The realization that it’s _her_ blood comes slowly.

She ignores it and ignores it until she can’t anymore, staring at the rusty patch of Hawkeye’s skin, then pulls the blanket up over her head so that she doesn’t have to look at her blood on his arm anymore.

Sleep, she decides, isn’t a bad choice at whatever hour it might be. Maybe Hawkeye’s got the right idea. The dull throbbing sensation low in her stomach and a heavy ache looming between her hipbones will still be there when she stirs again.

***

She spends most of the day in bed, not really sleeping but not entirely awake either. Hawkeye traipses in and out, bringing her his dogeared book of Robert Frost poems, a half dozen cups of tea begged or borrowed from one of her nurses, stale sandwiches, news from the outside.

“What’s the scuttlebutt?” she asks listlessly on his fourth visit of the afternoon.

The corner of Hawkeye’s mouth tics upward. “Officially, you’re indisposed. Unofficially, you’re a victim of the most recent round of dysentery. Congratulations, major. You’ve managed to avoid the genuine metaphorical shit hitting the fan by allowing some falsely-presumed literal shit to hit said figurative fan. Well done.”

She smiles, wincing a little as the movement pulls at her split and swollen lip.

“Speaking of,” he leers, waving one hand flippantly in her direction, “You _look_ like shit, major. Respectfully, of course.”

“This level of honesty is unsettling, but refreshing.”

Hawkeye hums in affirmation, his eyes roving across her face. “Potter says there’s murmurings of a push starting soon,” he informs her gravely. “How are you?”

She scoffs, shoots him her best haughty, thin-lipped smile. “I think I’ll live.”

“Glad to hear it, major.”

***

The push begins sometime close to midnight.

The wounded start pouring in around three.

She stumbles into the O.R. alongside everybody else, barking instructions and hiding the occasional wince behind her mask. Even from inside, the familiar two-beat whir of the helicopters reaches their ears. All the sheets covering tables are clean, like the whole ordeal has been erased. Like there was never a pool of Margaret’s blood here. Like everything is as it was two days ago; like everything is still alright.

Everything below her waist feels raw and sore. After standing for hours on end, her entire body aches.

 “You alright?” BJ asks, nudging her with one elbow as he passes behind her. “You haven’t moved in over a minute.”

“Headache,” she mutters, squinting her eyes shut tight.

“You look pale,” BJ counters, straightening up further once he’s looking at her properly. “Like you might be sick. You gonna faint on us?”

“Just a headache,” she replies testily, longing for sleep or pain medication or – in an ideal world – both.

“Margaret, if you’re not well, you shouldn’t be in here,” Frank simpers. “We don’t need dysentery spreading any further or faster than it already has.”

“Oh, lay _off_ , Frank,” Hawkeye grumbles, cutting him off. “We’re all tired and we’re all cold, and we’re all trying not to get sick. If Major Houlihan says she’s fine, then she’s fine; she wouldn’t lie about something like this.”

Margaret’s heart drops into her stomach. _She wouldn’t lie_.

“Next!” Hawkeye shouts, peeling off his blood-slicked gloves. “C’mon, Klinger; bring me something nice and simple. Think Frank’s speed.”

“Colonel Potter!”

“Alright, maybe not Frank’s speed. Bring me a live one, not somebody who needs a mortician. I never was very good at getting the cheeks packed and rouged enough to look lifelike. And the eyelids! I just can’t get it so the stitching doesn’t show!”

“You ghoul!”

_“Pierce – “_

“Sir, I’ve got a kid here I think’ll be perfect for you; just came off a litter Jeep and he’s got a crushed ribcage. Phrases such as ‘a bag full of broken china’ come to mind. Driver said the guys up at the aid station think his sternum’s probably fractured.”

“Prep him, Klinger.”

So it goes. Margaret smiles slightly behind the mask, oddly grateful for the normalcy of the situation.

***

By some sort of unspoken agreement, no one ever really talks about it.

They’ve all decided that it’s better to dutifully pretend they can’t hear Margaret through the mosquito-net-and-canvas walls when she wakes up screaming in the dead of night, or her sobs in the shower stalls, than to acknowledge that anything has happened.

Maybe no one ever suspects. Nightmares amongst the personnel here are alarmingly normal. 

Maybe it’s for the best. After all, some secrets are just meant to stay buried.

**Author's Note:**

>   * Title comes from Robert Frost’s poem “Good-bye, and Keep Cold”. I’m a sucker for the idea that Hawkeye likes poetry about orchards.
>   * The fetal stethoscope or Pinard horn actually won’t start picking up a fetal heartbeat before approx. 20 weeks. Prior to the invention of Doppler fetal monitor (1958), this was the only way to detect and monitor fetal heartbeats.
>   * Sanitary pads/napkins during the 1950s had to be used with specialized belts, which attached to the ends of the extra-long pads with loops or pins. The more familiar adhesive-backed pads did not appear until the 1970s. (Tampons using the ‘tube-within-a-tube’ style of applicator have been available since the early 1930s.)
>   * Contrary to its name, emesis basins aren’t usually used in instances of vomiting. The shallow depth and sloping walls of the basin often cause vomit to splash or spill out instead of catching it; plastic bags are often used instead.
>   * The song that Hawkeye sings is a bastardized version of [“Captain Ward (And The Rainbow)”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Ward_and_the_Rainbow), which tells the tale of a 17th century pirate (most likely Capt. John/Jack “Birdy” Ward). There’s a good version done by the band Tempest, if you want an [audio track.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JybETyQ_snE)
>   * This fic takes place somewhere around the middle of Season 5, within a very loosely held show canon.
> 



End file.
